1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to digital photography. More specifically, the present invention teaches a variety of computer methods and systems for placing a digital photography processing or fulfillment order over the Internet, from any geographical location to any other geographical location, allowing for personalized and customized processing of such order. In so doing, the present invention provides a digital photography process as simple as traditional photography, decoupling the user from hardware and software application specifics associated with processing and fulfillment systems of the prior art.
2. Description of the Related Art
Traditional photography has evolved to a point where a consumer is provided a simple, convenient and straightforward system which in line with the consumer's needs. The typical traditional photography system involves a film-based camera, a roll of film, and a convenience store for dropping off film and taking delivery of final fulfillment. The user of traditional film has only four choices to consider from start to finish, namely: 1) buy film; 2) take pictures; 3) drop off film; 4) take fulfillment. The user of traditional photography does not have to concern themselves with the science of emulsions or toners and developers. The science of film processing is made transparent to the user of traditional film photography.
In contrast to traditional photography, digital photography involves a complicated system and process. The typical digital photography system requires a digital camera device, a digital media memory card, a computer for uploading digital pictures from the digital camera, software shipped with the digital camera or ancillary software purchased to manipulate and enhance the digital pictures, an ISP connection to the Internet, a web browser for online web services, and perhaps a local printer. The current art requires the user to acquire knowledge for discovering and locating online fulfillment services as well as knowledge about digital imaging science for manipulating and submitting digital pictures for processing in general. Digital photography processing and fulfillment order in the present art is not user friendly.
One significant problem with existing prior art products in the digital photography marketplace is that these solutions individually or as a group do not offer an “anywhere, anytime or anyplace” consumer utility. While these devices may be suitable for the particular purpose to which they address, they are not as suitable for making digital photography as simple as traditional photography. Furthermore, the digital nature of the architecture of this invention opens up other workflow opportunities, which is the fundamental basis of this invention.
Current prior art solutions are have four fundamental flaws: 1) they are isolated resources of information and services; 2) they offer only fixed semantics; 3) they are passive computing environments; 4) they are composed of idle structure. As isolated resources of information and services, there are little to no relationships created or information exchanged among digital photography commonality and/or mediated service opportunities in different resources such as processing and fulfillment sites, etc. Each resource is accessed within private and proprietary means, limiting user choice of various forms of combining processing and fulfillment options.
As fixed semantics, digital photography is interpreted and processed initially by the vendor's perspective (software, hardware, or web services), and do not necessarily reflect the evolving semantic expectations of users. As idle structure, relationships between digital photographs from a single-event session, statistical analysis, EXIF tags, and information patterns are not utilized. Different kinds of structural relationships are available, but not typically used within the prior art.
These missing components of the prior art lead to fundamental system flaws preventing different opportunities of coupling computing devices and resources with user goals and expectations. These is little, if any, system-to-user co-adaptation and learning capabilities, because inherently passive-environments and relatively static idle-structures are unable to pro-actively push relevant information to user and in between relevant computing resources; this precludes any ability to make “recommendations”.
Furthermore, because of the passive environment and isolated nature of the computing resources, there is no relevant mechanism to exchange knowledge, or crossover of relevant information among users and in between relevant computing resources; this precludes any ability to form “conversation” between interested physical or computing resources. Worse yet, the fixed semantics eliminate or severely limit the ability to recombine knowledge and information to infer new methods and processes for achieving digital photography processing and fulfillment; this precludes any ability to explore “creativity”, eliminating the ability of the system to evolve with “emergent properties and behaviors”.
What are needed are techniques and mechanisms allowing the digital photography experience to have the same transparent ease of use known in traditional film photography. Ideally the user of the digital photography system would allow a user to create photographs with the same four steps (assuming digital camera and digital media memory card are already purchased) found in traditional photography, namely: 1) take pictures; 2) find entry point into the system embodied by this invention; 3) modify their personalization and customization (this is optional if the user uses the defaults they established during subscription/registration) if desired; and 4) take delivery of final fulfillment.